Andreas Bommarius
Professor
Contact Information
Building: Petit IBB
Office:
3310
Phone: 404.385.1334
Fax: 404.894.2291
email
Mailing Address
Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Chemical &
Biomolecular Engineering
311 Ferst Drive, N.W.
Atlanta, GA 30332-0100
Links
Andreas Bommarius
Education
B.S., 1982, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Diploma, Chemistry, 1984, Technical University, Munich, Germany
Ph.D., 1989, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Research Interests
Dr. Bommarius' area of expertise is in biomolecular engineering, especially biocatalysis, biotransformations, and biocatalyst stability. His group is mainly interested in three areas:
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imparting novel or improved function on protein catalyst templates through combinatorial design including modeling of such processes
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finding novel redox biocatalysts for efficient processes to enantiomerically pure compounds important in the life science industries
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investigating biocatalyst operating stability in aqueous salt solutions and partially organic media, using a variety of tools combined with suitable kinetic models of deactivation.
Background
Dr. Bommarius joined the Georgia Tech faculty in the Fall of 2000 after an industrial career of more than 10 years with the Degussa company in specialty chemicals where he headed the Biocatalysis laboratory and pilot plant. During nine of those years, he also lectured at the graduate level in Biochemical Engineering and Biocatalysis. His two dozen patents and as many applications cover chemoenzymatic processes, amino acid chemistry, membrane reactors, and novel biocatalysts as well as chemocatalysts. At Georgia Tech, he is a faculty member of both the School of Chemical Engineering and the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Rationale
Biotechnology and biocatalysis have been essential for the enormous progress in the synthesis and processing of complex molecules towards novel drugs, crop protection agents, and nutraceuticals. Currently, understanding of design rules for Nature's catalysts makes great progress. Biocatalysts, however, often are stable only over limited ranges of temperature, pH value, and solvent. Furthermore, many fewer catalysts exist than interesting targets and the development of new biocatalysts still too long. Thus, two of the most important challenges in biological catalysis are the necessity for improving stability of protein-based catalysts as well as the creation and optimization of new catalysts and reaction media.